At logon, password prompt already open and cursor positioned?

  • Thread starter Thread starter mikehc
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mikehc

I have two XP Pro machines which as far as I can see have identical setups in
terms of user accounts etc.

On one of them, after a reboot, you have to click the icon for the username
in order to open up the password prompt.

On the other, the password prompt is already opened for you and all you have
to do is type the password to log on.

I cannot for the life of me see why they should be different. It's not
particularly a roblem, just driving me mad trying to understand why they are
not the same.

Both machines have Guest account disabled, both are not on a domain (but
used to be), both have only one active account with the same name and
password.

Can anyone shed any light on this?

Mike
 
I think this is what you are refering too...

If you go to the control panel, user accounts and click on "change the way
users log on and off"

Youw ill probably find that "use the welcome screen" is selected for the one
you have to select to get the password prompt.....

Hope that solves your mystery!

Shaz
 
mikehc said:
I have two XP Pro machines which as far as I can see have identical setups in
terms of user accounts etc.

On one of them, after a reboot, you have to click the icon for the username
in order to open up the password prompt.

On the other, the password prompt is already opened for you and all you have
to do is type the password to log on.

I cannot for the life of me see why they should be different. It's not
particularly a roblem, just driving me mad trying to understand why they are
not the same.

Both machines have Guest account disabled, both are not on a domain (but
used to be), both have only one active account with the same name and
password.

Can anyone shed any light on this?

Mike
Click to expand...

Ever shared a folder on the first computer?

On an XP system with a single user created account, the default behavior is for
the icon on the Welcome screen to be active and the cursor blinking in the
password box. As soon as you share a folder on the computer, the behavior
changes. You now need to click on the user account icon on the Welcome screen.
The cursor starts blinking and you can enter your password. Bottom line, as soon
as you enable file sharing on an XP system, be prepared to click on the icon at
the Welcome screen.

I don't know why this happens, and I've never been able to find a workaround
that addresses the issue. I've found that using System Restore to take the
computer back to the state that existed before the folder was shared will help
but that's not a practical solution. Disabling the Welcome screen is one
alternative. Go to Control Panel -> User Accounts and click on "Change the way
users log on or off". Uncheck "Use the Welcome screen" and hit the Apply Options
button. When you restart the computer, the Logon to Windows dialog will be
displayed and you can type in your password.

Good luck

Nepatsfan
 
Thanks, Nepatsfan.

I have had folders shared on both computers - in fact I have shared folders
active on both of them right now! - so while sharing folders may be something
to do with it, it doesn't seem to be the whole answer.

The other difference I noticed is that on one machine only (the one which
requires you to click on a user icon), there's a little "EN" between the
password prompt and the green arrow button. Presumably this is something to
do with languages, but again I can't see any difference in the language
settings between the two machines.

This is all very odd!

Mike
 
Yes, i'm getting the same annoyance.
I have one account only on my xp machine. I don't connect to a domain and
don't have any shared folder.

Welcome screen worked fine until yesterday, but at every boot i now have
password field automatically opened nomore. Don't know what happened.

I compared "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows
NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon" with the one of a xp on another machine, but
they are identical, except for the presence in my machine of the REG_DWORD
"ChangePasswordUseKerberos" setted to 1. I deleted it but nothing changed.

Hope in a microsoft MVP clarification.
 
Skynet said:
Yes, i'm getting the same annoyance.
I have one account only on my xp machine. I don't connect to a domain and
don't have any shared folder.

Welcome screen worked fine until yesterday, but at every boot i now have
password field automatically opened nomore. Don't know what happened.

I compared "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows
NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon" with the one of a xp on another machine, but
they are identical, except for the presence in my machine of the REG_DWORD
"ChangePasswordUseKerberos" setted to 1. I deleted it but nothing changed.

Hope in a microsoft MVP clarification.
Click to expand...

I've just solved this annoyance in this way.
You can follow the steps below only if you have .net framework installed but
don't work with ASP.NET.

1. control panel/Admin tools/computer management
2. system tools/local users and groups/Users
3. double click on ASPNET (ASP.NET Machine Account)
4. click on "account is disabled

At every boot i now have password field already opened and cursor
positioned.

I always have had .net framework installed on my pc since 1.0 version and
never had problem with asp.net account. So don't know why if i disable that
account welcome screen starts working fine again, but it seems to be a
solution. I repeat, you can disable it only if you don't work on asp.net
projects.

Bye
 
Thanks, Skynet. That worked!

Don't use this machine for ASP.NET development so that's fine. The other
machine doesn't have the .NET framework on it at all, so no ASPNET user
account, so it worked fine anyway.

Thanks again.
 
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